


Where We All Started

by TrishaCollins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 17:48:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13746132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: On a routine mission to make sense of one of Jupiter's moons, the researchers find much more than they were looking for under the ice.





	Where We All Started

“Kogane, if you don’t get that fucking strut stabilized,” Mitch’s growl above him was a threatening rumble.

 

“You’ll put me out the airlock as dead weight, I know, I know. I told specs we needed more-“ He trailed off into grumbling, tightening his makeshift seal. He had his entire body wedged under the floor panel, which was the best angle for getting at the damned servo without taking a walk. He did not want to take a walk for internal repairs. “Specs! I need your hands!”

 

Sam appeared over the edge of the hatch, tool box in hand. “Did the impact as we left atmo do that much damage?”

 

“Oh, only if we want to land once we get to Europa,” He said as cheerfully as possible, hands still buried in the guts of the ship, one braced against the loose machinery to keep his seal steady. “Hand me the thingy.”

 

Sam’s bemused look didn’t stop him from offering the right tool.

 

He took the soldering gun, carefully passing it over the seal. “Do a roll, Mitchy.”

 

“Kogane I swear…”

 

Sam grabbed the edge of the hatch to brace himself, and he wedged his toes in, not that he was really scared of moving around. The real challenge would be getting himself out of here without breaking anything else.

 

“No shaking?” He asked, after the roll had been completing. He couldn’t feel any rattles in the part, but Mitch had been complaining that the ship itself was shuddering when he tried to make adjustments to their flight path.

 

Silence, and then an accenting grumble.

 

Sam gave a little laugh, taking the soldering gun back when he offered it. “Close enough for him to approve.”

 

He grunted, carefully untangling his arms from the lines and wires until he could slither out. “If we _make_ it to Europa, I will be shocked as hell.”

 

Sam offered him a towel. He took it, wiping at his face and arms to try to get the grease off.

 

Sam chuckled. “You might want to take a step into the shower, you look a bit like a raccoon.”

 

He waved the comm spec off, tucking his tools away with an economy that he barely bothered with for anything that wasn’t his tool box, rolling the entire thing into his ready pack. It never hurt to be careful when the gravity sensors were at the mercy of a crazy person on a good day.

 

“Ace pilots are going to be the death of me.” He told Sam, rolling his eyes.

 

Sam, good natured man that he was, just laughed. “You weren’t that far behind him in scores, you know.”

 

“I would have waited for a later window with all that that debris.” He shook his head. “Caution never hurts. He’ll learn that.”

 

Hopefully not this mission. But he wasn’t holding his breath. It was going to be a long few months out to the moon. He liked Mitch, liked Sam, and liked listening to Sam babble about his kid and show off the pictures and videos he had brought with him of the newborn. But it never felt like enough.

 

Even out in space, he was missing something.

 

*~*~*~

 

The ice cave Mitch had set them down in was stunning, and only, by Sam’s estimation, a bare quarter of a mile from their approved landing sight. With the wind and the unexpected storm as they came down, it was impressive.

 

They had taken pictures around the landing sight, gotten a few samples. Sam had enthusiastically pointed out saline and the thin atmosphere’s oxygen content. They were suited, and would be for the entire mission, but the air was nearly breathable.

 

It was cold, cold enough that he could feel it in his fingers through the suit. But he was working through the cold, they all were. Here on the ground, there was no grumbling. They were a team.

 

“Akira!” Sam came trotting over, looking down the drill. “There’s a smaller cave entrance in ours. Once you get this set up, want to come with me?”

 

“We’re not supposed to do anything but test the thickness of the ice layer.”

 

Which wouldn’t really slow Sam down, Sam was a ferret, and Mitch was just as curious.

 

“This drill will operate on its own, who knows when we will get another chance?” Sam persisted. “Mitch says it is fine. We can go down once everything is finished setting up.”

 

He was the only holdout, but knowing his crew, they would probably go by themselves. Which meant he’d eventually have to go after them.

 

“Fine. Let me finish setting this up and get the process started.” He shook his head. “I should have figured that it would take less than a day for the two of you to go off mission.”

 

Sam laughed, patting his shoulder. “You worry too much.”

 

“Because neither of you worry at all.” He retorted. “I’ll get this done faster if you leave me alone.”

 

Sam laughed again, but crossed the ice field to where Mitch was setting up the satellite.

 

*~*~*~*~

It seemed like every spare moment they had, they spent in those tunnels. It was several degrees warmer, a near balmy temperature compared to the exterior of the moon.  Though he wasn’t sure he should be happy that -16C seemed _warm_. The tunnels were extensive. They went on for miles under the surface, the inner passages were completely smooth.

 

“They look like someone made them.” Sam whispered reverently, pressing his hand to the side of the tunnel as he walked.

 

“Just the water when it flows, probably.” Akira offered, shining his light down the tunnel. “You’re the scientist. This ice hasn’t had a thing touch it.”

 

“I would expect more cracks, really. It’s a fascinating geological feature. And they go so deep. Almost like roads.”

 

Mitch grunted, glancing at Sam and then tossing him a look. “Roads. Holt is seeing roads on Europa. Have you felt how damned cold it is out there, Holt?”

 

“All you would need is a particularly stubborn evolutionary strain. We can survive here.” Sam pointed out blithely, stepping deeper into the tunnel. There was a central chamber, ringed by a number of wide cave openings.

 

Like a traffic circle.

 

He stopped, shining his light down each of the tunnels, almost tuning Mitch out.

 

“Holt, we can survive here because of the best equipment Earth can afford.”

 

“Ah, but we evolved our brains to be sufficiently advanced. In order to create the solutions to those problems, Mitch. It is entirely improbable that we, alone, advanced sufficiently to combat hostile environments and thrive in them.”

 

His light reflected off something down one of the tunnels and he stepped forward automatically, because it _looked_ like movement. But there was nothing down here.

 

“Don’t give me that old rot. You’re not in grad school anymore, you’re here to observe what exists, not what you want to exist.”

 

He took another step, then another, bending down to pick up something small and shiny in the ice. It looked like a coin. A coin under just a small dusting of ice, carved with a non-human face.

 

“It’s not that I want aliens to exist.” Holt protested. “It’s just that statistically it’s much more likely.”

 

He lifted the light, and caught another flicker of movement down the tunnel. He pocketed the coin, and stood slowly, following the movement down to a turn in the tunnel.

 

“I don’t….Kogane?”

 

There was something irregular about the ground. He squatted down, running his fingers over the track.

 

Because that was what it was, what it had to be, a track. Something heavy and mechanical with some sort of exhaust pipe.

 

Something large.

 

“Kogane?!”

 

There was a scuff further down the tunnel, but he couldn’t see anything.

 

“Kogane! There you are, what in the hell are you doing wandering off?!” Mitch demanded.

 

“I thought I saw something.” He kept the light trained down the passage.

 

“Shadows.” Mitch dismissed. “We need to go reset the drill. Come on.”

 

He flicked his light at the track one last time. But he nodded and pushed down the impulse to go chasing after – what, movement? The sense that they weren’t alone?

 

*~*~*~*~

 

It was hard to get time alone on the ship. It was too small, and their down time was mostly spent together. Eating or sleeping. Sam spent time in the lab, so even that wasn’t a quiet space to do anything. Sam was nosy, it was one of his best traits. But in this case, he wanted a little space to breathe and study what he had found.

 

So it was a few days before he got a chance alone to run any tests on the coin. The system didn’t recognize the metal it was made of. He didn’t recognize the shape on the coin, with the teeth and the clearly alien features.

 

He should report it. He should log it in the computers and send a report back to Earth. It was important.

 

But if he did, they would be recalled. Nothing would be as important as an actual alien artifact.

 

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more in the tunnels.

 

Something he needed to find.

 

Sam wanted to go visit his roads again, and he guiltily slid the coin into an inner pocket to keep it close and hidden. Sam, who wanted to find aliens more than anything else, who would have been beyond excited to find the coin.

 

He had no idea why he was hiding it, or what compulsion had buried itself in his skin.

 

“I want to get some readings as well,” He admitted, slipping his tool belt on. “We can take samples from different areas, see what the differences are when we get back?”

 

Sam enthusiastically agreed.

 

He slipped two wet start flares into his bag when nobody was looking.

 

The tunnels were entirely unchanged. He didn’t know why he had expected there to be any sort of change, but he found himself a little disappointed as he turned away from Holt and made his way back down the tunnel he had started to follow before.

 

The track was still there, though the ice had melted in subtle ways that mostly obscured what he had seen before. He hadn’t taken pictures. Mitch would find a way to explain it away if he had.

 

He kept his light down low, looking for any other traces, breath low and shallow inside his helmet.

 

He knew time passed, but in ice tunnels that weren’t very dissimilar from each other, it was hard to tell how much. His suit could tell him, but he had to activate the function, and he was so focused on the light in his hand that he hadn’t.

 

There was a soft sound to his right, but he kept his light down, following the path in the direction.

 

“You are persistent.” A soft, female voice observed. “I didn’t think you would follow me this far.”

 

He slowly trailed his light up to focus on her, dark suit, glowing purple mask – and a sword leveled at him. “You speak English?”

 

The mask couldn’t smile, but she huffed in a way that he thought meant she had almost laughed. “I can speak a number of your languages. We’ve been observing you for a long time.” She – had to be a she, at least his mind was telling him that she was a she – tilted her head. “I expected more fright.”

 

“What? A shriek? I think I’m still in shock.”

 

She huffed again, then gave a low throated chuckle that made something in his chest jump.

 

“I’m Akira.” He offered, when she seemed to be done laughing at him, offering his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Ma’am.”

 

She hesitated for a moment, shifting her sword to an offhand grip, and offered him her hand. “Delana.”

 

She was taller than he was, by quite a bit. “Delana. You from around here?”

 

“Not precisely. Though this satalite is occupied.”

 

“I take from your inference that it’s not occupied by you?”

 

She pulled her hand away, seeming uneasy, and then lifted her hand to her mask, deactivating it in some way.

 

She was purple, which barely scratched the surface of just how non-human she looked, her face was sharp – refined, he thought it was called, slender nose, soft ears hidden beneath the hood of her suit. Stripes, too, lighter than the rest of her, over her forehead and down her nose, framing her wide, golden eyes.

 

“Wow.” He whispered, only to have one of her ears flick and a thin smile trace her features.

 

“This place is occupied by the Galra Empire, you and your compatriots need to leave immediately.” She told him, voice worried.

 

“Right.” He paused, tilting his head. “And who are they?”

 

Her face fell a little, and she slipped the sword into a sheath at her side.

 

*~*~*~*  
  
It took a few hours to get the entire story out of her, during which they sat on the side of the corridor. It felt pretty insane, but there was a purple woman next to him with facial markings and long dark hair just starting to thread with silver near her face. So the entire day was mostly a wash for making any sort of sense.

 

“So.” He said slowly, after she had finished. “You’re here to stop this Arkon fella-“

 

“Zarkon.” Delana corrected.

 

“Zarkon.” He repeated, gamely trying to make sense of it all. “This Zarkon fella wants this blue cat thing. But that’s also a weapon of some sort. And your mission is to stop him from getting it. But he’s been looking for it for ten thousand years?”

 

Delana nodded. “Exactly. He thinks it is here, it is the place that makes the most sense in your solar system.”

 

“So why does he think it’s _in_ our solar system?” That part had been explained, he felt, but he didn’t quite understand.

 

“The former Paladin brought it here.” She shrugged and sighed.

 

“Right. So it kinda doesn’t matter if it’s here or not, he’s decided it is so we have to deal with that.” He chewed his lip, leaning back against the ice wall, considering it. “So. How do we find it if he hasn’t after all this time?”

 

Delana blinked, ears flattening against her head. “’We’? There is no ‘we’, Akira, you and your fellows need to get off this satellite immediately.”

 

“Darlin’, it’s in my backyard. There’s nothin’ y’all have tried that’s worked, so now we need to get in on it too. Besides, two people looking are more likely to find it than one.”

 

She stared at him, mouth slightly open, clearly caught off guard.

 

He grinned, standing up and offering his hand, even though she was probably at least a foot taller than him.

 

She took it and made her way to her feet, smooth and graceful.

 

Damn. She really was something.

 

*~*~*~  
  
It was easier than he expected to find time away from his crew to help Delana comb the tunnels. He was starting to look forward to seeing her, after months of no company but Sam or Mitch, she was a marvel.

 

Well, she was a marvel for other reasons, but he’d take all of the parts of her.

 

They met in one of the underused transport tunnels to compare their findings, and she would sigh at his latest attempt at tinkering with the energy signature tracking device she had given him.

 

“Really, your species is so primitive you’ve barely managed space flight. Do you really think you can improve on our technology?”

 

He chuckled. “Yeah, but see. You and yours have been working from your perspective. I’ve been telling you all this time, sometimes you need outside eyes.”

 

She shook her head at him, almost fond. “Akira.”

 

“Delana.” He intoned, trying to match her accent.

 

She laughed.

 

He loved making her laugh, she was always so serious, so contained. Her laughter was a rare thing as they worked. But he would take it. Take every moment he got to spend with her.

 

It was hard work, combing the tunnels and staying out of sight, but he found himself enjoying it. He had even managed to prey a few rocks out of the walls, which kept Sam happy.

 

He lost days inside the tunnels, scanning slowly down the walls. He lost days to Delana and her possibly hopeless quest, not sure why he was so driven to help her find it.

 

For the first time, he didn’t feel like he was missing something.

 

*~*~*~*~*~

 

“So how long is this mission?” She asked, poking her spoon into the reconstituted meat mash he had brought from his ship. They had traded rations today.

 

Hers tasted a bit like steak and gravy, which was interesting. The air had a bite to it, but she had brought a portable heater and it was surprisingly comfortable to have his helmet off in the tunnel.

 

“Six months, then we go back to resupply and trade out with the relief crew. Continue the experiment. We’re three months in.”

 

She grimaced, poking at the mush. “But you won’t be coming back?”

 

“Not till the mission after that. Gonna miss me?” He flashed her a smile.

 

She flattened her ears, and rolled her lip back in a halfhearted snarl. “I have gotten used to your companionship.”

 

He laughed. “I’ll miss you, ok? Though it’ll be nice to be warm again.”

 

Trading one hopeless mission for another.

 

“When does your relief come?” He asked, taking another bite of her rations.

 

“It doesn’t. We work alone.” She looked away, down the tunnel. “This is my mission until it is done.”

 

“Sounds pretty lonely.” He said, after a short silence.

 

She was quiet, poking at the meat mush. “Are you sure this is food?”

 

He laughed. “Rations suck the universe over, darling.”

 

She sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for my father’s cooking, sometimes.”

 

“What’s he like?”

 

She glanced at him, mouth skewing to the side. “Strict. He has…a great deal on his shoulders. But he is kind as well. I never wanted for anything as a child, save for his presence. What are your parents like?”  
  
“My dad was a fighter pilot, my mom stayed home. They’re pretty traditional. But I think they tried, they both supported me going into space and finding my own path.” He smiled a bit. “Can’t imagine what I will put together to tell them about this.”

 

She laughed. “Will you tell them anything?”

 

He watched her, not sure how he could explain any of this to anyone. “No. Maybe I’ll keep you to myself.”

 

She smiled a bit then, the skin around her markings changing color in some subtle way that made him think she might be doing something close to blushing.

 

“We should return to our work.” She said softly, after a moment of staring down at the food pouch.

 

“Yeah.” He agreed.

 

*~*~*~

 

Looking back, he was going to blame Sam for everything. It was safer, really. Blame Sam or blame himself for being so taken with Delana that he hadn’t warned his crew.

 

So when one of Sam’s drills brought up the necklace, he wasn’t there. He came in just as they broke it out of the ice, when the light contained within it was activated. The drill exploded, detonating fiercely, sending shrapnel in every direction.

 

Sam looked horrified, one hand bloody from where he had been angling the drill. But still, shocked. Not moving away from the destroyed equipment. Or looking up at the sky, where the clouds were suddenly boiling. Or maybe that was just an illusion caused by a large ship descending. Could they react that quickly? Probably. Ten thousand years must have created protocols for every situation. 

 

“We’ve got to get out of here.” He snarled, turning to Mitch, who was cradling his bloody face and staring up with his one working eye at the building storm. “We have to get out of here.”

 

He could hear the low hum of something in the air. He knew they were coming. It made him clumsy, that rush of terror, that rush of knowing. He missed the first time he grabbed for the pendant, his energy sensor screaming in its pocket. He snatched it up the second time, shoving it into a pouch. 

 

“Shit shit shit.” He grabbed Sam, dragging the man into the cave, shoving him towards the smaller opening. “Mitch! Now!”

 

“What the hell is happening out there?!” Mitch demanded.

 

“Later. Come on.” He was dragging Sam, who couldn’t stop looking over the shoulder.

 

“What sort of storm is that?” Sam asked, white and awed.

 

“A bad one.” Probably not a storm. “We’ll be safer in the tunnels.”

 

Something hit the ground above them with a thundering crash, and the ice tunnels shattered around them. Something exploded, and heat rushed past his face. His faceplate had shattered. He could smell gas, it must have been trapped in the ice. Which had just exploded. He tried to get his feet, only to find that one of his legs wasn’t working right, when he slid back down the ice he left a trail of blood.

 

“Akira!” Sam sounded worried, and above him, somehow.

 

“Fuck, Kogane, hold on a second. We’ll get something and pass it down.” Mitch was leaning down, bloody side of his face turned slightly away.

 

The leg was a bloody, crushed mess. It barely looked like a leg anymore.

 

He looked up at his crew, who he knew had no equipment with them and were at least a good hundred feet above him. “Well, damn.”

 

He swallowed against his suddenly dry throat, fumbling in his pouches, looking for something he knew he had. There was gas in the walls. He could use that. Maybe just as a distraction, but he could use it. He heard steps behind him. Lots of steps. More explosions above.

 

They’d found him. “Get back to the ship. Leave. I’m dead already.” He reached for his locator tag, if it was active they would try to come back for his body. They would try to come back again and again until they found him or the Galra destroyed them, and then Earth. “Now, before this storm gets worse.”

 

There were pockets of gas in the walls, methane or something similar. Safe on a world where there wasn’t any fire.

 

He popped the lid on the flare, feeling it surge to reassuring life in his hand, and threw it as hard as he could down the tunnel.

 

His entire world exploded into light and cold.

 

*~*~*~  
  
He woke up, which was more than he expected. “Shhh. Do not try to move, I set your leg and dressed the wound. You are still recovering.”

 

“Delana? My-the others?”

 

“Made it off the moon. The soldiers weren’t interested once you threw that flare.” She touched his face, smoothing his hair back.

 

He sagged back, closing his eyes. “I destroyed my locator chip. So they wouldn’t try to come out of my body.”

 

“Smart.” She kept her hand on his face, fingers moving in slow strokes against his skin.

 

“Sam found…something.”

 

“A piece of one of the lions, connected to an Altean amplification device. A decoy. Now they think we have the lion.” She laughed. “The old Paladin must have planted it deep within Europa.”

 

“A practical joker. Guess we’d get along.” He reached up to touch her wrist. “What now?”

 

She smiled. “Well. Now, we are on my ship, and the entire Galra fleet is chasing us. I suppose we…manage?”

 

He leaned up, slowly, tentatively, and pressed his lips to hers.

 

To his relief, she didn’t pull away.

**Author's Note:**

> For @radioactivesupersonic on tumblr. For tolerating my babbling. 
> 
> Funny note, I occasionally had to read some of the lines out loud to get to Texan accent. How Keith manages to have zero accent is a question I want answered.


End file.
